The Mycenaean civilization had vanished by 1100 BC but was remembered as a heroic age of great deeds, preserved in epic poems. Two survive, dated around 700 BC and attributed to Homer: the Iliad, retelling the dramatic climax of the Trojan war, and the Odyssey, recounting the later wanderings of Odysseus.
The subject matter is very mixed: some describes the world known to Homer and his contemporaries, when Greece was re-emerging as a civilization, some preserves genuine memories of Mycenaean times. One passage that many believe records the Mycenaean situation is the Catalogue of Ships, from which the following extract comes: it details the Greek forces besieging Troy.
